More Proof Our Government is Bought

Example #47: Buffett Rule Blocked Even with 72% Public Support

Is "By the People for the People" Now Just a Pipe Dream?

April 16, 2012-- On the same day that a new CNN poll shows that 72% of Americans support  the "Buffett Rule," which would require people earning $1 million a year or more to pay at least 30% in taxes (the same rate working people pay), the "Buffett Rule" fails in the U.S. Senate when 51 Senators vote to proceed with a vote on the measure, and 49 vote against, but because of a(nother) Republican filibuster, 60 votes were needed to get the vote to the Senate floor.

Keeping taxes low on the rich who finance elections and pay for lobbyists trumps the will of a vast majority of the people.  Sooooo NOT supposed to be the American Way.

Image credit: Flickr, Chris Devers

Mark Halperin: Now Polling the Entire Obama Administration's Personal Views on Marriage Equality (Riiiiight)

Today was a tough day on the rock pile.

Some days, all you can do is duck and then throw them back

Not as tough for me as it was for Dick Lugar, but tough nonetheless.  The day was tough personally, at work, but not politically.  There just wasn't any one BIG development today that riled people up-- the mainstream media is, by and large, still on "rehash" regarding Joe Biden's Meet the Press appearance and Mark Halperin's predictably dickish follow-up question with Arne Duncan on Morning Joe.  (Hey, if Halperin can call the President a dick, the least I can do is return the favor.)

What a non-story.

Why was it a non-story, you ask?  Simple-- Vice President Biden made clear in his Meet the Press interview that he doesn't set the agenda, the President does.  And yet somehow, Mark Halperin, in his thirst for knowledge, felt there must be a story here, worthy of investigating further.  And the best next place to dig for the fountain of truth?  Arne Duncan, of course.  I guess it became essential to know how every member of the Obama administration feels on the subject, that's the only reason I can think of that he would ask Duncan that question.

So is he going to be asking that question of every administration official now?  He's probably working his way down the list as we speak, right?

If he wants to maintain any pretense of journalistic integrity, he'll have to.  Otherwise, he'll look at best like a jerk who wanted to interject a shocking question to grab a headline, not someone who can even fake being genuinely interested in pursuing whatever "insight" there is in exploring how the entire administration feels individually about the subject of marriage equality. 

And at worst, he'll look like someone who deliberately asked an irrelevant question to stoke the embers of an emotionally-charged fire, either to extend its shelf-life or the unthinkable, to fan the flames for his own purposes rather than simply reporting on it.

Of every story in the whole universe that he could pursue, every other dark corner he could shed the sunshine of journalism on to disinfect and send corrupt cockroaches scurrying, that's the best he could come up with.  I, for one, am inspired by his curiosity and zeal to get at a truth that will really have a profound impact in the world.

I haven't heard so far that Halperin has asked anyone else in the Obama administration about their personal views on marriage equality-- if I missed something, please, by all means, set me straight in the comments.  Otherwise, I'll be busy nominating him for a Pulitzer if you need me for anything.  And then I'll be in mourning, now that, with Lugar's defeat, another nail has been driven in the coffin of the functional government phenomenon formerly known as "compromise."

Image credit: Flickr, deflam

If Mitt Romney Was a Cross-Dresser...

What would he be like?

He would have a shoe collection that was “just the right height” to make Imelda Marcos drool, stored in a hermetically-sealed, multi-level, climate-controlled, digital polishing and preservation chamber.

And after he: 

• Bought this season’s most chic new shoe releases,
• Bet you $10,000 his new shoes were better than yours,
• Dumped last season’s leftovers on a second-hand seller,
• Took a fat tax break for having made a donation,
• And spent your $10,000 on a new shoe storage chamber (after you lost the bet because his shoes actually WERE better than yours)…

 …he would talk about how he is a job creator.  (Building a shoe storage chamber is a job, my friend...)

And then he would say barefoot was the new black and footwear is a socialist tactic to regulate the expansion of, and limit the freedom of, feet.

His slogan? (of course)-- Mitt Romney:  He Knows a Quality Flip-Flop When He Sees One.

Image credit: Flickr, sta.helena

Don't Pass the Buck Back to Mommy & Daddy-- Mommy & Daddy are Broke!

All Mommy and Daddy have left... if they're lucky

Has it ever occurred to anyone else that the ability for young adults to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26 under Obamacare is just one more example of passing the buck?

Giving students the ability to borrow to pay for their educations, once heralded as a godsend for the middle class, did nothing to help control the growth of the cost of higher education and has now mired those it was intended to help in decades of debt.  What was once the prime years for laying a financial foundation for the future are now years spent slaving to dig out of student debt, if they're even able to make any progress.

By the same token, the ability to be covered on their parents' insurance does nothing to keep the cost of insurance from increasing exponentially over the years-- it merely disguises the burden of the cost as an "opportunity" and shifts the responsibility to parents.  The insurance companies still get paid, they've just been kind enough to let someone else pay the bill.  So generous of them.

It's very similar to the way the HSA was supposed to help families save to cover medical expenses.  Insurance companies got to shift costs to insureds in the form of higher deductibles, and the government gave up revenue to give people a tax break as an incentive to save.  Guess they never even considered that many people don't have any extra money TO save, or that insurance companies don't have any incentive to contain costs.  The insurance lobby won again, and Americans were left holding the bag on a larger share of their medical expenses while insurance companies continue to squeeze more profit from already-strapped consumers.

Has no one else even considered that caring for their own parents, caring for themselves (since their 20s and 30s were spent buried in debt, they're lucky to have much if anything saved) and having cared for their now-grown children may have exhausted the parents' resources?

With the cooperation of the government, greedy corporations can keep trying to pass the buck back to Mommy and Daddy instead of addressing the underlying problem of the uncontrolled escalation of healthcare costs, but they'd better not count on parents being able to pay the bill-- sooner or later (and for some, it's ALREADY), Mommy and Daddy will be broke.

Image credit: Flickr, puuikibeach